Routing a teleportation request based on compatibility with user contexts

ABSTRACT

A teleportation proxy and teleportation proxy service which monitors the usage of a networked computer or terminal to determine contextual metadata for a user reflecting current usage of the networked computer or terminal. A search engine then searches metadata of virtual universe locations in accordance with at least a portion of said contextual metadata and candidate matches are compared against the contextual metadata to determine suggested teleportation destinations in a virtual universe.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This invention is related to a previous invention by the same inventorsentitled “Apparatus and Method to Transition Between a MediaPresentation and a Virtual Environment,” U.S. patent application Ser.No. 12/568,924, filed Sep. 29, 2009, entitled “Apparatus and Method toTransition Between a Media Presentation and a Virtual Environment”, thecontent of which is fully incorporated herein by reference.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention generally relates to the production and managementof interactive virtual universes presented to users on computers linkedby a network and, more particularly, to facilitating teleportation of anavatar to an optimal location within one or more interoperable virtualuniverses based on current user contexts.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Closely following the introduction of computer generated graphicrepresentations of objects, computers games have been developed and havebecome popular to the point of becoming a significant industry. Asignificant factor in the continuing popularity of such games maypossibly be the fact that the simulated venue or environment in whichthe game is played is limited only by the imagination of the gamedeveloper and can be presented to a viewer on a display with a realisticappearance which is limited only by the hardware and software employedto render associated images. Moreover, such simulated environments maybe changed at will and very rapidly with rules of the game often beingaltered with the simulated environment. Connection of computers throughnetworks such as the Internet have also allowed interactiveparticipation in the same game simultaneously or at will by numerousparticipants.

As a synthesis of such games with other capabilities of the Internetsuch as interactive chat rooms, advertising and marketing and access tomassive amounts of information and the like, so-called virtual universes(sometimes referred to as “metaverses” or “3D Internet”) have beendeveloped and made available to the public in recent years. A virtualuniverse (VU) is a computer-based simulated environment intended forusers thereof (referred to as “residents” or “agents”) to inhabit,traverse and interact through the use of avatars. An avatar, in thecontext of a VU, is a graphical representation of a user which has anappearance that is freely selectable that the user can control and otherparticipants can see, often taking the form of a cartoon-like humanwhich can move through the regions of the virtual universe representedby 3D graphics and landscapes which may or may not resemble the realworld in terms of physical laws, building environments, geography andlandscapes. Some examples of virtual universes available to the publicinclude Second Life® (“Second Life” is a trademark of Linden Research,Inc. in the United States and/or other countries), Entropia Universe™(“Entropia Universe” is a trademark of Mindark PE AB in Sweden and/orother countries), and There® (“There” is a trademark of ForterraSystems, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries). Examples ofmassively multiplayer online games include EverQuest® (“EverQuest” is atrademark of Sony Online Entertainment, LLC in the United States and/orother countries), Ultima Online® (“Ultima Online” is a trademark ofElectronic Arts, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries) orWorld of Warcraft World of Warcraft® (“World of Warcraft” is a trademarkof Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. in the United States and/or othercountries). Publically available virtual universes and/or massivelymultiplayer online games are operated by persons or companies whoprovide servers to generate portions of the VU and which may impose acharge for participation as a resident, to establish a particular objector environment (sometimes referred to as an “island”) within the VU,present advertising and the like or combinations thereof. In short, anavatar controlled by a resident can interact with other avatars, objectsand portions of the immediate environment of the avatar in much the sameway a person would interact with other persons, objects and portions ofthe environment in the real world but where transportation betweenportions of the VU may be nearly instantaneous (e.g. referred to as“teleporting”) and objects and local environments within the VU may beentirely developed at win to resemble the real world closely, not at allor with any degree of realism or fantasy in between which may beprovided by the administrator of the VU or users of the VU, often for anot insubstantial fee. Further, once such objects or local environmentsbecome part of a VU, fees can be charged for use made of them throughavatars. On the other hand, many entities have found it advantageous toprovide environments closely resembling real world facilities or localesto allow users to experience, though avatars and with a significantdegree of realism, particular locales in the real world and a samplingof the likely inhabitants thereof. Conversely, a user may wish tointeract with a portion of a VU which is compatible with or closelyresembles a current user context such as current activity or location.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention provides an apparatus and method functioning as ateleportation proxy service to track user contexts and search for andsuggest to a user locations in one or more virtual universes havingmaximal compatibility with selected current user contexts.

In order to accomplish these and other objects of the invention, amethod of suggesting teleportation destinations which are personalizedto a current context of a user is provided comprising collectingcontextual metadata related to current usage of a networked computer orterminal by a user, developing a query for a search engine based on thecontextual metadata, searching locations of a VU for locations havingmetadata corresponding to the query to form search results, andsuggesting a VU location having metadata corresponding to the contextualmetadata as a potential teleportation destination for the user.

In accordance with another aspect of the invention, a computer programproduct is provided which, when run on a computer, causes the computerto perform steps of collecting contextual metadata related to currentusage of a networked computer or terminal by a user, developing a queryfor a search engine based on the contextual metadata, searchinglocations of a VU for locations having metadata corresponding to thequery to form search results, and suggesting a VU location havingmetadata corresponding to the contextual metadata as a potentialteleportation destination for the user.

in accordance with a further aspect of the invention, an apparatus isprovided comprising an arrangement for detecting at least one of alocation, a time/date, an activity/event and a person/object in dataavailable to the computer and related to current usage of the networkedcomputer or terminal by a user to form contextual metadata for the user,a memory for storing the contextual metadata, a search engine forsearching locations of a VU for locations having metadata correspondingto the contextual metadata to form search results; and an interface forprompting a user to view a suggestion of a VU location having metadatacorresponding to the contextual metadata as a potential teleportationdestination for the user.

In accordance with yet another aspect of the invention, a teleportationproxy service comprising furnishing use of software to a user of anetworked computer or terminal to configure a computer accessible to thenetworked computer or terminal to provide an arrangement for detectingat least one of a location, a time/date, an activity/event and aperson/object in data available to the computer and related to currentusage of the networked computer or terminal by a user to form contextualmetadata for the user, a memory for storing the contextual metadata; asearch engine for searching locations of a VU for locations havingmetadata corresponding to the contextual metadata to form searchresults; and an interface for prompting a user to view a suggestion of aVU location having metadata corresponding to the contextual metadata asa potential teleportation destination for the user.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The foregoing and other objects, aspects and advantages will be betterunderstood from the following detailed description of a preferredembodiment of the invention with reference to the drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a high-level block diagram or data flow diagram of anetwork-based virtual universe,

FIG. 2 is a similarly high-level block diagram of some details of theclient 120 and server 110 generally provided for participation in avirtual universe,

FIG. 3A is a high-level block diagram or data flow diagram of usercontrols and a proxy service in accordance with the invention

FIG. 3B is a flow chart illustrating operation of the invention,

FIGS. 4, 5 and 6 are exemplary screens or dialog boxes suitable forpractice of the invention, and

FIG. 7 illustrates a suitable processor architecture for use as a serveror client in FIG. 1.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF A PREFERRED EMBODIMENT OF THE INVENTION

Referring now to the drawings, and more particularly to FIG. 1, there isshown a high-level diagram of a network implementing a virtual universe(VU). FIG. 2 is a similarly high-level block diagram illustratingfunctional relationships between a client terminal and a serverimplementing a VU and between which network 105 may or may not beinterposed. FIGS. 1-2 are principally arranged to facilitate anunderstanding of the overall general operation of a virtual universe anddo not and are not intended to represent any particular knownimplementation of a VU. Further, at the level of abstraction with whicha VU is represented in FIG. 1, the VU illustrated may or may not includethe invention and no portion of FIG. 1 or 2 is admitted to be prior artin regard to the invention. It should also be borne in mind that VUimplementations have become relatively sophisticated and the underlyingtechnology relatively mature such that enhancements thereto, such asthose provided by the present invention, must be interoperable withexisting network and VU infrastructure and integration of the inventionwith a VU is generally depicted in FIG. 2.

It should also be recognized that operation of a VU is extremelyprocessing intensive and, while large amounts of computing resources maybe accessible through a network, graphics generation and rendering mustbe distributed and managed in such a way as to provide images ofportions of the VU in a very short period of time in order to beacceptable to residents of the VU, particularly in regard to updatingviews as avatars are manipulated and as teleportations between islandsof the VU occur. Further, substantial portions of the control of avatarsmust be automated in order to keep the manipulation effort required of aresident within reasonable bounds while providing meaningful andreasonably logical and realistic interactions with environments, objectsand other avatars. Thus, to reduce the number of avatar controlparameters which must be controlled by a user to a practical level, eachenvironment/island, object and avatar must be personalized (e.g. have apersonality, properties, including ownership and the like) as well asmany properties and attributes (e.g. behaviors and defaults) which mustbe transmitted efficiently, generally as metadata, between potentially alarge number of processors which perform the rendering thereof and therendering distributed in some form to the terminals through whichresidents interact with the VU.

More specifically, as illustrated in FIG. 1, the overall network andsystem 100 will be recognized as substantially the same as that of theInternet. Other functional elements such as firewalls, proxies and thelike may be included for purposes of security, reliability and the likebut are not important to the successful practice of the invention.Network 105, such as the Internet, provides communications between allVU servers 110 a-110 d and at least one virtual universe server 115which establishes the basic VU topology, characteristics, rules and thelike and maintains membership and billing information in regard toresidents (users). Clients 120 a-120 d are essentially user terminalsand may communicate with the network 105 and VU server 115 eitherdirectly or through a VU server although that distinction is unimportantto the practice of the invention, as well. A suitable processorarchitecture is illustrated in FIG. 7 and discussed below.

Referring now also to FIG. 2, the nature of communications generallydepicted in FIG. 1 will be explained in greater detail but also with adegree of generality since many variations thereof may be employed. Itwill be readily understood by those skilled in the art that rendering ofislands, avatars, objects and the like is perhaps the most processingintensive aspect of a virtual universe as well as being the mosttime-critical for performance which is acceptable to the user. Hardware,software and firmware for performing rendering is generally resident ineach VU server 110 and the virtual universe server 115 of FIG. 1 but maybe present to some degree (e.g. a graphics co-processor) at a clientterminal 120 as depicted by dashed line 210 and parentheses in FIG. 2.In general, the servers 110, 115 will have the capability of arbitratingthe most convenient/available location for rendering to be done mostexpeditiously. For example, when rendering is required at, for example,client 120 a for interaction of a particular avatar with an object whilechanging location on an island, the rendering (including occlusion orhidden line processing) could be performed at the local server 110 b ordistributed over any or all of servers 110 a-110 d and possibly evenincluding some client terminals (e.g. 120 b) having rendering capabilitydepending on rendering complexity (e.g. required detail) and currentprocessing loads of VU servers and clients. It should be appreciatedthat plural avatars for plural residents/users may be present in thesame environment and that a different point of view may be required forthe rendering presented to each resident/user.

Thus, the graphics to be presented to a user may be transmitted as arendering to the network or a local client from a server (e.g. ascompressed graphics which may or may not be further modified at a localserver or client processor) or, if rendering of avatars, objects orislands resident on a particular server are to be rendered on anotherprocessor, attributes such as the identity, physical laws, graphicsdefinitions (e.g. primitives), etc. of an island, the identity,properties, graphics definitions; etc. of an object and/or personality,ratings, graphics definitions, etc. of an avatar are stored, preferablyas metadata in servers 110 and transmitted as such to the processor(s)which will actually perform the rendering and retransmission of thegraphics. It should be appreciated that such attributes will be eitherconstant or only infrequently or slowly changing and thus would beimpractical and distracting to specify with each avatar command but canbe automatically transmitted and retransmitted between servers, asneeded, with avatar commands, controls and/or communications specifiedby the user/resident.

It should also be appreciated that client 120 will have appropriatecontrols and communications facilities (which are not generallyhardware-dependent but can use available hardware interfaces such as akeyboard, mouse, camera, microphone or the like) collectively depictedat 225 of FIG. 2 which will preferably be resident on the clientprocessor.

In order to create islands, objects and avatars, some arrangement fordoing so, preferably a graphic user interface (GUI) which may be in theform of one or more screens (possibly nested) functioning as a console230 a-230 c may also be resident but are preferably downloaded fromvirtual universe server 115 through the local server. Such consolesallow particular attributes (e.g. locations, properties, personalities,graphics definitions and the like) to be specified and which arethereafter stored, preferably on an associated server 110 as depicted at220 a, 220 b and 220 c for islands, objects and avatars, respectively.Similar GUIs 240 a-240 c are also provided (but preferably resident onthe client processor) for control of the current island, object(s)and/or avatar, once it has been created. Suitable arrangements forproviding GUIs or consoles 230 a-230 c and GUIs 240 a-240 c are knownand others providing enhanced user/resident convenience is foreseeable.The current island (220 a) with its associated objects (220 b)correspond to the current location of the current avatar (220 c) and arethus the object of teleportation or relocation invitations to which thepresent invention is directed for management thereof as will now bediscussed.

Some definitions which will be helpful in the following discussion are:

1. Avatar—an avatar is a graphical representation the user/residentselects that others can see, often taking the form of a cartoon-likehuman but which can be produced with any degree of detail, whetherrealistic or fanciful;

2. Agent—an agent is the user's account, upon which the user/residentcan build an avatar and which is tied to an inventory of assets the usercreates and/or owns;

3. Region—a region is a virtual area of land (e.g. a portion of anisland or an environment associated therewith, such as an interior spacein a building) within the virtual universe which typically resides on asingle server;

4. Landmarks—a landmark is a map location that can be saved by a user(much in the manner of a “bookmark” in the Internet) and typicallycomprises a name and a map coordinate within the VU;

5. Friend/contact—a friend or contact is another user/resident of the VUwhich is maintained in one or more lists which allows a user to see whenfriends or prior contacts are online and provides a mechanism forcontacting them directly using tools available with the list. It shouldalso be appreciated that assets, avatars, the environment correspondingto a location and anything else visible in the virtual environmentcomprises universal unique identifiers (UUIDs) tied to geometric data(preferably distributed to users as textual coordinates), textures(preferably distributed to users as graphics files such as JPEG 2000files) and effects data (preferably rendered by the user's clientaccording to the user's preferences and user's device capabilities butcould be otherwise rendered as discussed above).

Virtual universes may be traversed by such methods as walking, flying orteleporting. Generally, walking and flying provide for traversal ofareas within an island while teleporting provides a mechanism fortraveling rapidly from one VU location to another VU location even ifthe locations are geographically (e.g. in the context of the topology ofa particular VU) far apart such as on different islands or even indifferent virtual universes. As indicated above, a user can teleport toany other location of which he may be aware. However, since a majorfeature of virtual universes is to allow avatars of different users tointeract as well as to increase user awareness of additional locationsthat may be of interest, one user may issue an invitation to anotheruser in the form of an offer of teleporting an avatar of the recipientfrom the current location of the recipient's avatar to another location.Known systems allow a recipient to accept or reject the invitation/offerof teleporting. If accepted, the avatar of the recipient is teleportedfrom its current location to a location corresponding to theinvitation/offer. In general, principally for convenience ofadministration (e.g. billing) and security, teleportation is performedbased on an invitation which may be accepted or rejected but a user maygenerally solicit an invitation to any location of which the user may beaware in order to allow the owner of the island to provide promotionalinformation or impose any restrictions on the invitation which must beaccepted by a user before the teleportation is carried out. However, forthe successful practice of the present invention it is only necessary tounderstand that some mechanism is provided by the user to requestteleportation such as solicitation of an invitation or subscription to avirtual universe providing locations to which teleportation can beperformed on request of a user.

Networked computers or computer terminal-like devices (e.g. a televisioninterface accessory having a keyboard and possibly other user inputdevices) are commonly used for a variety of activities such as researchor communication and including entertainment as well by receiving videopresentations as streaming video and audio programming or accessingvirtual universes and video games. A user may thus switch between suchfunctions at will and may even perform some or all of these activitiesconcurrently.

For example, a user may be watching a movie or preparing a document on asubject having to do with a particular location and/or time period andwish to virtually experience a particular location in an interactivemanner. For example, an author using a word processor may be composing anovel or dramatic work involving a particular location and wish toobserve a virtual experience of his avatar “walking through” aparticular scene at a particular time in that or a similar location.Similarly, a user at a particular location may wish to have a virtualexperience of some facility or attraction in the area or the generalenvironment of that location such as making a virtual visit to a localamusement park or restaurant at the current or another time such as adifferent season (or even to experience current traffic conditions) todetermine if an actual activity or visit to such a site at a particulartime is or would be desirable. Likewise, a user already having an avatarat a location in a VU having particular characteristics may wish tovisit other locations in the same or another interoperable VU havingsimilar characteristics in order to determine which island may be mostconducive to the desired virtual experience. It is easily foreseeablethat interoperable virtual universes will exist in the future and thatit is very likely that different virtual universes will have islandshaving very similar characteristics. It is also very possible that, dueto network traffic conditions and varying processing loads, avatarcrowding and the like at locations in a given virtual universe, thatvery different VU experiences may be derived from differing conditionssuch as avatar usage at virtually identical islands existing ondifferent virtual universes at a given time.

For example, a virtual park or other type of facility may be provided onseveral virtual universes and one may be crowded (or have longerresponse times, different quality graphics or the like) while another,substantially duplicate location may not (or provide better service,rendering or the like). Currently no facility exists to even inform auser of the existence of parallel or otherwise contextually relatedlocations on the same or other interoperable virtual universes; thelikelihood of which will almost necessarily increase in the future.Actually finding and carrying out teleportation to a contextuallyrelated location, particularly one which the user may consider to beideal can be a complex and frustrating experience and certainly, at aminimum, presents a substantial distraction to the user who may, forexample, merely wish to have a brief virtual experience with a realobject or person known to be present at a given time in a real locationbut not knowing if a corresponding virtual location exists on a VU whichcan be accessed or whether or not the object of interest will be presentat such a virtual location, if any. At present, a user must rely on“word-of-mouth” information, published lists of locations (in whichdetail is likely to be very limited) or simply experimenting withdifferent virtual universes. At the present state of the art, suggestionof appropriate teleportation destinations is generally limited to paidsponsorships of VU destinations or by analysis of actions of the user'savatar within a VU to determine the user's implied interests forselecting a destination for suggestion. In other words, virtual universesystems currently available do not even possess the facility forobtaining information to make suggestions likely to be appropriate to auser (as distinct from the user's avatar) in any of the scenariosalluded to above since they do not and cannot consider the context ofthe user's current activities within or apart from a VU.

To facilitate such a contextually related virtual experience, theinvention is preferably embodied as a teleportation proxy service 250that routes (or makes a suggestion to route) the user to the mostappropriate VU and location therein based on the user's (as opposed tothe avatar's) current circumstances or context, including but notlimited to the user's environment, location and current activities,whether or not those activities involve a VU location. By thuspersonalizing the selection of VU and location therein to a current orrecent context of a user, either automatically or responsive to userrequest for a suggestion, the user is able to have a more favorable VUexperience while minimizing effort and distraction which may becurrently involved in locating an appropriate teleportation destinationhaving suitable or best contextual compatibility or relevance.

In FIG. 2, teleportation proxy service 250 is depicted as functionallylocated between a client terminal 120 and a server 110. It is to beunderstood, however, that server 110 need not be topologically orphysically adjacent the client in the network but could be associatedwith any networked server or even contained in any client, including theuser's terminal. The depiction of FIG. 2 such that the proxy isconveniently located, logically, such that it can receive inputinformation directly from the client control, communications and inputswhile being interposed in VU location communications between the clientand server in order to bidirectionally communicate with both as well asto receive avatar and object information communicated incident tooperation of the VU system in regard to client 110. Such a functionallocation also is preferred for allowing the invention to operate in the“background” as a proxy service to monitor user activities and searchvirtual universes for locations and/or objects relevant to the useractivities. These communication links are collectively depicted in FIG.3A (e.g. between client CPU 216 and connection 310′ to network 105 andwhich could be merged with connection 310 through the client CPU ifdesired).

Referring now to FIG. 3A, a preferred architecture for teleportationproxy service 250 will now be explained. It should be borne in mind inthe following discussion that the three scenarios in which a user mayemploy the invention to substantial advantage and convenience are notonly exemplary but quite different and accommodated in much differentways. However, the hardware/software facilities and resources involvedin all three can be viewed as very similar with only relatively slightoperational differences employed in each of the respective scenarios.Therefore, FIG. 3A is arranged to facilitate an understanding of thebasic principles of the invention supporting substantial flexibility ofapplication to such scenarios and variations thereon as well asdepicting a preferred architecture by which substantial economies may berealized.

In this regard, it may be helpful to note that the three scenariosdiscussed above differ principally in whether or not contextual metadata230 is available from the user's current activities in connection withterminal 210 and/or how it is obtained. In general, metadata suitablefor practice of the invention and examples of its potential sources areas follows:

Contextual metadata Potential sources User Location User-set systempreferences Network communication routing VU location metadata DateCurrent Date Programming metadata User-set Date VU location datemetadata Activities Current user activities Metadata re: activitiesavailable at location (may be from external network site) User-setsystem preferences VU location metadata Objects/persons User-set systempreferences Programming metadata VU location metadataThe appropriate choice of potential sources of the metadata should bearranged on the basis of the current interaction of the user with theclient terminal 120 and control of inquiries to search engine 330, asneeded. In general, it is desirable to provide for collection andstorage at 320 of at least the four types of contextual metadata notedabove. However, more types of metadata could be monitored and/or any orall of the above types of metadata could be subdivided for any desireddegree of detail to refine the search query and data involved in useractivity monitored or parsed for information appropriate to each type ofcontextual metadata. When any such data is encountered, the contextualmetadata stored at 320 is updated (or possibly deleted after a givenperiod of a type of contextual metadata remaining unchanged) to form achanged combination of metadata. A search can then be initiated fromsearch engine 330 and suggestions made to the user when found. It shouldbe noted in this regard, that the teleportation proxy service 250 inaccordance with the invention performs searches autonomously andprospectively as the contextual metadata changes and effectivelyannounces the availability of a suggestion. Therefore, regardless of theduration of the search, a suggestion matched to the current context ofthe user will be available for a teleportation request to be immediatelymade and an invitation issued when the user becomes aware that such adestination exists. Therefore any delay or latency in the teleportationproxy service 250 and any communication delays that may be encounteredin the search are made completely transparent to the user.

To obtain the best match(es), it is generally desirable to maintaincontextual metadata of all of the types for which provision is made suchas the four exemplary types of location, data/time, activities/eventsand persons/objects enumerated above. On the other hand, searching onfewer types of contextual metadata will have the effect of broadeningthe search as may be very appropriate or desirable if one or mere typesof contextual metadata remains unchanged for an extended period of time;allowing the inference that such a portion of the user context haspossibly become less relevant to the current context of the user and abroader search may be appropriate.

Thus, if a user is watching programming (or possibly writing text, usinga word processor) about natural disasters (or virtually experiencing onein a particular VU location and the San Francisco earthquake began to bediscussed (or virtually experienced), the text, VU location orprogramming metadata might be detected by detector 390 as, for example,“425 Market St., San Francisco, Calif., 1906” which would be parsedusing well known analysis techniques not critical to the practice of theinvention to find a location, time and event (but not necessarilypersons or objects) which are entered at 320 as contextual metadata forthe user. Entry of such contextual metadata will be presumably detectedas a change therein and a search initiated. Thus, after filtering 325,search engine 330 would assemble a query of the form:

Location: 425 Market Street San Francisco, Calif.

Time: 1906

Event: San Francisco earthquake

and conduct a search of available and interoperable virtual universesand return locations therein which match some or all of the contextualmetadata represented in the query. As alluded to above, more than onepotentially identical location could be returned and the user could thenselect between them. (It should be noted that if the user's avatar isalready in such a location of a particular VU, such a search would havebeen done incident to the prior teleportation to that location and whichwould have caused a change in the user's contextual metadata. Thus, anyalternative destinations also meeting the search query in whole or inpart would already have been returned and available to provide one ormore choices to the user.) As noted above, other types of contextualmetadata (either captured or inferred) could be used as determinants tohelp identify an appropriate VU and location therein such as the user'scurrent location, best networking route, the user's active VUsubscriptions and the like, for example, to provide the most suitableservice.

As noted above, if the user is already in a VU, the user may want toview (or experience) the same location at another time which the usercould enter in any of a variety of ways such as dialog boxes or screensas will be discussed below or which the invention could capture orinfer. That difference in time (or any other contextual metadata typewould also represent a change in the contextual metadata stored at 320and a further search performed using the existing location. In such acase, the search engine 330 would return data that matched the locationand time and effectively ignore the event since “San Franciscoearthquake” would not be matched at another time and thus the bestmatch(es) would be likely to only match the location and date. (Intheory, a VU location presenting another earthquake in San Francisco atthe specified date/time could exist and, in such a case, would bereturned unless the user's contextual metadata excluded fictional orfantasy events.) On the other hand, however, the event contextualmetadata could also be changed along with or instead of changing thedate so that the search would result in a return of one or more VUlocations corresponding to the specified event (e.g. a street race or agame based thereon) but still in San Francisco. From there, thecontextual metadata could be further changed by any of the facilities orcircumstances alluded to above, to change, for example, the locationcontextual metadata to find one or more different VU locations havingthe same activity on the closest date but in a different location (e.g.Monte Carlo).

More specifically and with reference now to FIG. 3B, in the firstscenario, where the user may be passively watching some networkprogramming or actively performing some other operations such ascomposition of a document, the contextual metadata may be derived fromthe metadata of the program being watched (e.g. from the network or alocal digital video disc (DVD) or the like) or the other operationsbeing performed such as words in a document being composed that may berecognized as a location; date or object likely to have a counterpart ina VU. In the second scenario, metadata cannot be derived in such afashion but must be derived from a search on the network using searchengine 330 based on the user location which search engine 330 may alsodiscover through network operations and infrastructure. In the thirdscenario, contextual metadata is necessarily available from the VUsystem currently in operation. The user activity in each of thesescenarios is collectively depicted at 3200 of FIG. 3B. The operation ofthe invention does not begin until contextual metadata is detected andcaptured as depicted at 3201. Detection may be achieved, for example, bycomparison with existing metadata terms existing for locations on a VUor in any number of parsing techniques known in the art or foreseeable(e.g. four-digit numbers or numbers separated by colons are presumablydates and times, locations and events/activities are likely to becapitalized, etc.). Timed deletion of contextual metadata 3202 mayoptionally be performed as alluded to above. Contextual metadatacaptured may also be duplicative of contextual metadata previouslycaptured. Therefore, the operation of the invention may begin whencontextual metadata is captured from the user activity but the operationsimply loops until a change in contextual metadata is detected asdepicted at 3203, whereupon a search 3301 for a VU location match someor all of the user's contextual metadata is initiated. Again, no actionis taken until a changed result of the search is returned and detectedat 3302 and the process continues to loop through the steps andoperations as described above until such detection occurs. Changedresults that are returned are preferably communicated as depicted at 335of FIG. 3A and stored and may optionally be sorted as depicted at 340and 360/370 of FIG. 3A and 3401 of FIG. 3B. Up to this point in theoperation of the invention, the operations of the invention are entirelytransparent to the user. Thus the operation of the invention is whollynon-intrusive until a reasonably well-matched suggestion and possibly aplurality thereof have been accumulated and are ready to be used. Aprompt can then be generated at display control 370 displayed to theuser (3701) but no further action is taken until the user responds(3702) with an authorization to proceed or a selection from amongaccumulated suggestions, whereupon a teleport invitation can berequested or teleportation directly undertaken through teleport control380, depending upon the protocol of the VU.

Returning to FIG. 3A, the user terminal 210 will typically comprise adisplay 212, one or more input devices collectively depicted at 214 anda central processing unit (CPU) 216; particulars of which are notimportant to the practice of the invention but the configuration andhardware resources included therein may be considered during operationof the invention as will be discussed below. Operation of theconstituent elements of the user terminal are well-understood in theart, including use for network communications and participation in a VUover network connection 310 and 310′. User terminal 210 communicatesdirectly with the teleportation proxy 250 which is preferablytransparent to the user and in an active or stand-by state although somefeature may be provided such as a so-called hot key or an icon (e.g. ina tool bar) to enable or disable the teleportation proxy. In such acase, when disabled, the teleportation proxy service 250 would simplyallow normal communications to pass through it, if necessary, while,when enabled, it can autonomously conduct its own communications withthe network to obtain and, if desired, store information upon which itoperates discussed above. In any case, some network communications canand preferably should be conducted directly with the network, asdepicted at 310′ for clarity, regardless of the state of theteleportation proxy service in accordance with the invention such assearching communication links to determine the physical location of theuser.

The teleportation proxy service 250, itself, preferably includes amemory or storage area 320 to hold current contextual metadata for theuser and one or more memories or storage areas 340 to storecorresponding data concerning particular VU locations derived through asearch performed by search engine 330. To enhance speed of response, itmay be desirable to accumulate VU location metadata in a database 350associated with the user terminal 210 since users of a given terminal210 are likely to be more frequently interested in some types of VUlocations than others and VU location metadata, if kept current, may beaccessible more rapidly from database 350 with much less searchprocessing overhead and a smaller database, possibly even in acontent-addressable fashion, than from a search conducted by searchengine 330 over all extant VU locations.

It is preferred to provide all of the elements of the teleportationproxy service 250 by downloading software as a computer program productwhich configures CPU 216 into such functional elements. Doing so allowsthe service to be provided to the user by subscription or otherwisemarketed to VU users. Thus FIG. 3A can also be understood as a data flowdiagram depicting the methodology of the invention.

When data is present in both contextual data storage 320 and VU locationmetadata storage 340, a comparison can be performed based oh the contentthereof and the quality of the match, if any, discovered thereby can berated and optionally sorted (at 370) and the results displayed undercontrol of display control 370 or otherwise provided to the user) uponrequest, periodically or upon detection of change of metadata stored at320 and/or 340, as depicted at 332 or 362, or user comparison criteria,such as minimum degree of successful comparison, as teleport invitationsfrom which a selection can be made by the user, upon request from theuser. If, under the conditions of one or more of the above threescenarios, contextual metadata is not available, search engine 330preferably searches for and captures such information from the networkas alluded to above. Otherwise the search engine preferably functions asan agent to continually (as network traffic permits upon detection of achange in contextual metadata of the user) search the network and VUsystems accessible therethrough to obtain VU location metadata whichmatches at least some of the contextual metadata 320 to maintain storedVU location metadata as current as possible.

In this regard, it should be noted that it is deemed preferable tofilter some of the contextual metadata, as depicted at 325, such thatless than all contextual metadata that might be available for comparison360 is available to the search engine for conducting a search. By doingso, communication of information the user may consider to be sensitivesuch as demographic or personal location information may be preventedfrom being transmitted over the network, particularly if the searchengine is provided as a distributed resource and not wholly containedwithin the client CPU (as is likely to be the case) to avoid a need toperiodically poll all VU systems and locations to obtain current VUlocation metadata. It can be readily understood that such polling wouldrapidly become prohibitive in regard to communication link overhead asVU locations and VU systems as well as VU system users proliferate. Thusit is preferred that search engine 330 simply operate to obtaincontextual metadata 320, if needed, and to seek matches to as much ofthe contextual metadata as is made available at the will of the userusing filter 325, store the potential matches (possibly with expirationtimes/dates) and periodically update only the matches that are storedand which match current contextual metadata. It may also be useful inthis regard for the search engine 330 to be periodically operated tosearch for VU locations which have metadata of certain categories suchas being modeled on real world locations or having particular physicsengines (e.g. that apply particular real or fanciful physical laws tothe behaviors and properties of objects) and effectively assemble one ormore catalogs of such VU locations.

In operation, contextual metadata can usually be easily derived from theactivity of the user of terminal 210. If, for example, the user ispassively viewing network programming or an external source such as alocal or remote DVD, that programming itself will, if recently created,normally be tagged with metadata about location, time period, subject,objects or persons depicted therein and the like either for the completeprogram or individual scenes or time periods therein. Such data may be,for example, of the form:

<movie type>documentary</movie type> <time in movie>0:23:00<\time inmovie> <subject>pyramids</subject> <location>Egypt</location> <timeperiod>3000 BC - 2000BC</time period>which the search engine can then attempt to match, preferably usingfuzzy logic (which is well-understood in the art) to detect good matchesbetween data which inexactly matches. Such tags can be provided by thecreator of the program, by viewer comments or from other data sourcessuch as statistical analyses of success of suggestions previously madein accordance with the invention to the same user or other users.

It is also possible to draw some inferences from particular metadata orcombinations thereof such as seeking more realistic VU locations formore realistically portrayed programming such as documentariesparticularly where objects are shown in close detail and highinteractivity is likely to be desired in a VU location, more fanciful VUlocations for fictional/fantasy programming and the like (e.g. sciencefiction) or VU locations having a “look-and-feel” similar to theprogramming (e.g. animated programs). Conversely, other inferences thatmay be drawn from the metadata of programming may indicate anincompatibility or particular desirability of some processing providedat a VU location such as a physics engine imposing fictional physicallaws and providing rapidly moving action may not be appropriate for amatch to documentary programming but very desirable as a match to ascience fiction movie.

While such data is provided in most currently produced programming andsome standardization of format is occurring in the industry, it may benecessary to provide some format conversion of such data or provide fortagging the programming in an understandable format. Such metadata willnecessarily be available from the VU system location environment for thethird scenario alluded to above where the user's avatar is already inthe environment of a VU location. In this case, metadata concerningphysics engine compatibility and hardware sufficiency at the user/clientterminal for interaction with the environment should also preferably beincluded in the contextual metadata. That is, if the user's computingenvironment in terms of clock speed and available memory is limited,such limitations should also be reflected in contextual metadata so thatVU location requirements for local processing may be considered insearching for matching VU locations. Such metadata from a VU locationmay be similar to:

<VU>Some VU</VU> <location name>Some location</location name> <VUPhysics engine> <name>Some physics engine</name><gravity>real-world</gravity> <VU Physics engine><processor>1.75GHzPentium</processor> <RAM>1G</RAM><coordinates>245,568</coordinates>

The service identifies the user's current context.

If such metadata is not available from a programming source or from a VUlocation currently being visited by a user's avatar, such as when a wordprocessor is in use to compose a document, as alluded to above, certainmetadata may be directly entered or excerpted from the document such asby block transfer to storage area 320 using a contextual metadata screensuch as that depicted in FIG. 4. Such a contextual metadata screenpreferably mirrors the format and content of storage area 320 and canalso advantageously and conveniently be used to input settings forfilter 325, alluded to above, or otherwise edit current contextualmetadata and, in any case, is preferably invoked from a periodicallydisplayed dialog box or constantly displayed icon.

Alternatively, if the user activity does not correlate with anyparticular location or time or the user does not wish to make such acorrelation to be considered in a search and resultant suggestedteleport destination, a preferred default is the user's current locationor most frequently or recently used location (e.g. the user's hometown)which can be readily determined by search engine 330 (also performing adefault operation when no contextual metadata is available at any giventime) from internet routing information and locally stored. When thelocation has been determined by the search engine and entered intocontextual metadata area 320, the search engine is preferably given afurther network inquiry to determine activities or circumstances (e.g.conditions such as weather and traffic) which may be available in thevicinity of that location (as reported, for example, on web sites ofbroadcast radio and television stations, visitor's bureaus, chambers ofcommerce and the like) which, once found, can also be entered intostorage area 320 for purposes of a search of VU locations by searchengine 330. Therefore, at least a location should always be available incontextual metadata storage area 320 for comparison at 360 with searchresults returned by search engine 330 stored at 340 when the user isprovided with an option to teleport to a contextually best-matchedlocation while additional information which may be advantageously usedin searches of VU locations for contextually similar locations cannormally be derived therefrom.

To provide for such a user choice in a non-intrusive manner as well asto limit communication overhead imposed by search engine 330, it ispreferred to provide for search engine 330 to have the capability todetect changes in contextual metadata 320, as depicted at 332. Ofcourse, other expedients to provide such an indication will be apparentto those skilled in the art such as simply detecting a storage operationat memory or storage area 320 and/or a change in settings at filter 325.Such a change detector could also be provided for comparison 360 since,as a perfecting feature of the invention not necessary to operation ofthe invention in accordance with its basic principles, it is preferredto allow the user to not only edit contextual metadata 320 but also toassign weights to the particular metadata matched and the quality of thematch (e.g. exact, fuzzy or tenuous) from the metadata screen alluded toabove. When such a change is detected, operation of search engine 330 tofind other matches is initiated and new information will be stored atmemory or storage area 340 and/or 320 and further comparisons andsorting of results made at 370. Detection of a change in weight settingsmay result in a different result of sorting at 370 and provide adifferent result which the user may wish to view.

Subsequent to such search and processing or even while such processingis being performed, the sort logic 370 can send a message to bedisplayed, preferably, as depicted in FIG. 5, as a small dialog box orhot key, to ask the user if a teleport suggestion is desired. Such amessage can also be sent periodically at time intervals controllable bythe user through setting of timer 392 to limit intrusiveness to anacceptable level. If the user responds to the message, it is deemedpreferable to present the results of the search, comparison and sort tothe user to identify the site and display some or all of the VU locationmetadata 340 for the suggested destination in a form similar to that ofFIG. 6. An option to view alternative locations at various positions inthe sort order (e.g. next/previous) is preferably provided along with anidentification of the VU system and location for the information of theuser as well as a control for immediately initiating teleportation tothe currently suggested location.

Thus it is seen that the invention provides a simple and straightforwardmethodology and apparatus for determining the context of a user (asdistinct from the user's avatar) while searching the network asnecessary for suitable and relevant data that can be used as contextualmetadata, if needed, searching for corresponding VU locations, possiblyover multiple interoperable VU systems, and presenting them to a user asa personalized and contextually appropriate/consistent suggestion for ateleportation destination in a non-intrusive and user-friendly mannerwhich allows not only an enhanced VU experience but integration of useof a VU location with any other activity or activities on a particularcomputer or client terminal.

The preferred embodiment of the invention as described above can be mademore complex within the basic principles of the invention to providegreater functionality as may be deemed desirable or further perfectingfeatures which are particularly preferred and described above such aslocal storage of search results and an evaluation and sorting thereoffor presentation to a user, with or without weighting to reflectpreferences of the user in such evaluation and which will becomeapparent to those skilled in the art in view of the above description ofthe invention. By the same token, it will be recognized by those skilledin the art that the invention can be successfully practiced and itsprincipal meritorious effects achieved more simply by omitting storage340, 350, comparison 360 and sorting (as an incident of display control370 or similar modification) and simply displaying candidate matches tocontextual metadata as they are found by search engine 330. A reductionin response speed and some reduction in user interaction would beexpected from such a simplified embodiment but a contextuallypersonalized suggestion of a teleportation destination for the user (asdistinct from the user's avatar) would still be provided; a function notavailable from known VU systems.

While shown and described herein as a method, and a system, it isunderstood that the invention further provides various alternativeembodiments. For example, in one embodiment shown in FIG. 7, theinvention provides a computer-readable/useable medium 22B that includescomputer program code to enable a computer infrastructure toautomatically manage teleportation movements between locations invirtual environments while determining suitability of requesteddestinations. To this extent, the computer-readable/useable mediumincludes program code that implements each of the various process stepsof the invention.

It is understood that the terms computer-readable medium or computeruseable medium comprise one or more of any type of physical embodimentof the program code. In particular, the computer-readable/useable mediumcan comprise program code embodied on one or more portable storagearticles of manufacture (e.g., a compact disc, a magnetic disk, a tape,etc., collectively depicted at 32), or on one or more data storageportions of a computing device, such as the memory 22A and/or thestorage system 22B (e.g., a fixed disk, a read-only memory, a randomaccess memory, a cache memory, etc.), and/or as a data signal 34 (e.g.,a propagated signal) traveling over a network 105 as depicted in FIG. 1(e.g., during a wired/wireless electronic distribution of the programcode).

Still yet, computer infrastructure 10 is intended to demonstrate thatsome or all of the components of implementation could be deployed,managed, serviced, etc. by a service provider who offers to implement,deploy, and/or perform the functions of the present invention forautomatically managing teleportation movements between locations invirtual environments while determining suitability of requesteddestinations, for example by licensing methods and browser orapplication server technology according to the present invention to aninternet service providers (ISP) or cellular telephone provider. In oneembodiment the invention may comprise a business method that performsthe process steps of the invention on a subscription, advertising,and/or fee basis. Thus a service provider can create, maintain, support,etc., a computer infrastructure 12 including computing device 14, suchas the computer infrastructure 10 that performs the process steps of theinvention for automatically manage teleportation movements betweenlocations in virtual environments while determining suitability ofrequested destinations, and in return the service provider can receivepayment from the customer(s) under a subscription and/or fee agreementand/or the service provider can receive payment from the sale ofadvertising content to one or more third parties.

As used herein, it is understood that the terms “program code” and“computer program code” are synonymous and mean any expression, in anylanguage, code or notation, of an application 30 comprising a set ofinstructions including program control 44 intended to cause a computingdevice 20 having an information processing capability to perform aparticular function either directly or after either or both of thefollowing: (a) conversion to another language, code or notation; and/or(b) reproduction in a different material form. To this extent, programcode can be embodied as one or more of: an application/software program,component software/a library of functions, an operating system, a basicI/O system/driver 24 for a particular computing and/or I/O device 28,and the like.

The foregoing description of various aspects of the invention has beenpresented for purposes of illustration and description. It is notintended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise formdisclosed, and obviously, many modifications and variations arepossible. Such modifications and variations that may be apparent to aperson skilled in the art are intended to be included within the scopeof the invention as defined by the accompanying claims.

While the invention has been described in terms of a single preferredembodiment, those skilled in the art will recognize that the inventioncan be practiced with modification within the spirit and scope of theappended claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of suggesting teleportation destinationsin one or more virtual universes (VU) which are personalized to acurrent context of a user, the method comprising: collecting currentcontextual metadata corresponding to at least one of a location, atime/date, an activity/event and a person/object and wherein saidcontextual metadata is related to a current island or VU of an avatar ofsaid user, wherein said contextual metadata comprises informationcorresponding to the current context or circumstances of current usageof a computer or terminal by said user in regard to said at least one ofsaid location, time/date, activity/event and/a person/object andexcludes terms derived from a query or communication using saidcomputer; developing a search query for a search engine based on saidcurrent contextual metadata; when a change occurs in said contextualmetadata collected in said collecting step, developing a new searchquery and searching for VU locations having metadata corresponding tosaid new search query to form search results; and responsive to saidforming of search results based on said new search query, suggesting oneor more VU locations having metadata corresponding to a portion of saidcurrent contextual metadata based on said search results as a potentialteleportation destination for an avatar corresponding to said user intosaid VU location, wherein the one or more VU locations are in one ormore alternative islands or VUs offering a similar or same virtualexperience of said current island or VU in terms of setting, wherebysuggestions of potential teleportation destinations related to saidcurrent context and circumstances of computer usage by said user aremade to said user transparently.
 2. The method as recited in claim 1,further including: filtering said contextual metadata collected in saidcollecting step to form filtered metadata wherein said search query isdeveloped from said filtered metadata.
 3. The method as recited in claim1, wherein said collecting includes searching a network to determine alocation of a user.
 4. The method as recited in claim 1, furthercomprising: sorting locations resulting from said searching.
 5. Themethod as recited in claim 4, wherein weights are applied to said searchresults to prioritize said sorting.
 6. A computer program product forsuggesting teleportation destinations in one or more virtual universes(VU) which are consistent with current user context comprising acomputer readable medium storing non-transitory signals for causing adigital data processor to perform steps of: collecting currentcontextual metadata corresponding to at least one of a location, atime/date, an activity/event and a person/object and wherein saidcontextual metadata is related to a current island or VU of an avatar ofsaid user, wherein said contextual metadata comprises informationcorresponding to the current context or circumstances of current usageof a computer or terminal by said user in regard to said at least one ofsaid location, time/date, activity/event and/a person/object andexcludes terms derived from a query or communication using saidcomputer; developing a search query for a search engine based on saidcurrent contextual metadata; when a change occurs in said contextualmetadata collected in said collecting step, developing a new searchquery and searching for VU locations having metadata corresponding tosaid new search query to form search results; and responsive to saidforming of search results based on said new search query, suggesting oneor more VU locations having metadata corresponding to a portion of saidcurrent contextual metadata based on said search results as a potentialteleportation destination for an avatar corresponding to said user intosaid VU location, wherein the one or more VU locations are in one ormore alternative islands or VUs offering a similar or same virtualexperience of said current island or VU in terms of setting, wherebysuggestions of potential teleportation destinations related to saidcurrent context and circumstances of computer usage by said user aremade to said user transparently.
 7. The computer program product asrecited in claim 6, further including signals for performing steps of:filtering said contextual metadata collected in said collecting step toform filtered metadata wherein said search query is developed from saidfiltered metadata.
 8. The computer program product as recited in claim6, wherein said collecting includes searching a network to determine alocation of a user.
 9. The computer program product as recited in claim6, further comprising signal for performing a step of: sorting locationsresulting from said searching.
 10. The computer program product asrecited in claim 9, wherein weights are applied to said search resultsto prioritize said sorting.
 11. Apparatus for providing suggestions ofvirtual universe (VU) locations to a user of a networked computer orterminal wherein said suggestions are consistent with current usage ofsaid networked computer or terminal, said apparatus comprising: adetector to detect at least one of a location, a time/date, anactivity/event and a person/object in data available to said networkedcomputer or terminal and related to a current island or VU of an avatarof said user to form contextual metadata for said user, wherein saidcontextual metadata comprises information corresponding to the currentcontext or circumstances of current usage of a computer or terminal bysaid user corresponding to said at least one of a location, a time/date,an activity/event and a person/object detected by said detector andexcludes terms derived from queries or communications using saidcomputer; a memory for storing said contextual metadata; a search enginefor searching for VU locations having metadata corresponding to aportion of said contextual metadata upon detection of a current changein said contextual metadata to form search results; and an interface,responsive to said forming of search results based on said new searchquery, for prompting a user to view a suggestion of one or more VUlocations having metadata corresponding to said contextual metadatabased on said search results as a potential teleportation destinationfor an avatar corresponding to said user into said VU location, whereinthe one or more VU locations are in one or more alternative islands orVUs offering a similar or same virtual experience of said current islandor VU in terms of setting, whereby suggestions of potentialteleportation destinations related to said current context andcircumstances of computer usage by said user are made to said usertransparently.
 12. Apparatus as recited in claim 11, further including:a filter interposed between said memory and said search engine toprevent selected contextual metadata from reaching said search engine.13. Apparatus as recited in claim 11, further comprising: a comparatorfor comparing said contextual metadata and said search results. 14.Apparatus as recited in claim 11, further comprising: a further memoryfor storing said search results.
 15. Apparatus as recited in claim 11,further comprising a display control to sort said search results basedupon quality of match to said contextual metadata.
 16. A teleportationproxy service comprising furnishing use of software to a user of anetworked computer or terminal participating in a virtual universesystem to configure a computer accessible to said networked computer orterminal to provide: a detector to detect at least one of a location, atime/date, an activity/event and a person/object in data available tosaid networked computer or terminal and related to a current island orVU of an avatar of said user to form contextual metadata for said user,wherein said contextual metadata comprises information corresponding tothe current context or circumstances of current usage of a computer orterminal by the user in regard to said at least one of said location,time/date, activity/event and/a person/object and excludes terms derivedfrom a query or communication using said computer; a memory for storingsaid contextual metadata; a search engine for searching for VU locationshaving metadata corresponding to a portion of said contextual metadataupon detection of a current change in said contextual metadata to formsearch results; and an interface, responsive to said forming of searchresults based on said new search query, for prompting a user to view asuggestion of one or more VU locations having metadata corresponding tosaid contextual metadata based on said search results as a potentialteleportation destination for an avatar corresponding to said user intosaid VU location, wherein the one or more VU locations are in one ormore alternative islands or VUs offering a similar or same virtualexperience of said current island or VU in terms of setting, wherebysuggestions of potential teleportation destinations related to saidcurrent context and circumstances of computer usage by said user aremade to said user transparently.
 17. A teleportation proxy service asrecited in claim 16, wherein said software further configures saidcomputer to provide: a filter interposed between said memory and saidsearch engine to prevent selected contextual metadata from reaching saidsearch engine.
 18. A teleportation proxy service as recited in claim 16,wherein said software further configures said computer to provide: acomparator for comparing said contextual metadata and said searchresults.
 19. A teleportation proxy service as recited in claim 16,wherein said software further configures said computer to provide: afurther memory for storing said search results.
 20. A teleportationproxy service as recited in claim 16, wherein said software furtherconfigures said computer to provide: a display control to sort saidsearch results based upon quality of match to said contextual metadata.21. A method of operating a virtual universe (VU) in connection withanother activity of a user being conducted on a networked dataprocessor, said method including steps of collecting current contextualmetadata corresponding to at least one of a location, a time/date, anactivity/event and a person/object and wherein said contextual metadatais related to a current island or VU of an avatar of said user, whereinsaid contextual metadata comprises information corresponding to thecurrent context or circumstances of current usage of a computer orterminal by said user in regard to said at least one of said location,time/date, activity/event and/a person/object and excludes terms derivedfrom a query or communication using said computer; developing a queryfor a search engine based on said contextual metadata collected in saidcollecting step; searching for VU locations having metadatacorresponding to said query to form search results upon detection of achange in said contextual metadata; and responsive to said forming ofsearch results based on said new search query, suggesting one or more VUlocations having metadata corresponding to a portion of said contextualmetadata based on said search results as a potential teleportationdestination for an avatar corresponding to said user into said VUlocation, wherein the one or more VU locations are in one or morealternative islands or VUs offering a similar or same virtual experienceof said current island or VU in terms of setting, whereby suggestions ofpotential teleportation destinations related to said current context andcircumstances of computer usage by said user are made to said usertransparently.